Interactionary 2001 - Seattle (CHI
2001)

At CHI 2001 in Seattle we performed the second interactionary, adding some new
twists to last year's format to keep it
interesting. We reviewed all of the feedback from the first one, and
improved the scoring and timing for the event. The same crew of Debbie
Cargile, Sarah Zuberec, Chris Konrad and myself organized the event, with
Sarah leading the way. Without Sarah, the event would not have taken place
this year.

Like the first one last year, Interactionary is a pseudo game show type
format that allows 4 teams to work on the same design problem, live on
stage. Each team works one at a time, and are given ten minutes to work
through the problem, while the other teams wait in a sound proof room. The
goal is to expose the dynamic intangibles of design in progress, and allow an audience to listen
in on four teams and observing how they work.

We wanted to show some of the essence of design work than can not be
captured in papers, panel sessions or workshops. All team members wore
microphones while onstage, and the whiteboard is shown on the video
display so the audience can listen and watch.

We use a scoring system to give the format a framework, but the
competition isn't really the point. Human nature being what it is,
competition helps to get people to go up on stage and do things.

Brenda Laurel, Bill Moggridge, and Andrew Dillon were our expert
panelists, and they provided commentary and judging for the event. These
panelists were on stage, with the best view of the action. The three teams this year were from Trilogy, IBM/Tivoli, and
Cooper Design. (Teams from AOL and MonkeyMedia had to cancel and were
unable to appear at the event). Every team member wore a live microphone,
an the audience and the panelists were able to hear their conversations,
and view their work as they did it.

Scoring and Judging

We used a system of four categories this year: teamwork, process, user
focus, and final design. Each category was worth ten points, and each
panelist scored every team. Teamwork considered
how well the team worked together, and how they organized their time and
approach. Process considered the "methodology" they used for evaluating
the problem, using the whiteboards, and evaluating design alternatives.
The final design considered the usability, feasibility and
quality for their final solution.

We left the details of the scoring to the judges, giving them only
basic instruction as to how to score within each category. Since each
judge scored across all teams, their interpretations would be applied
equally across all teams. We also felt that the fewer the rules, the
better the experiment, and we viewed this format as a continuing
experiment in design education. During the Q&A some members asked
about providing more specific rules for the format. It's a reasonable
consideration, except for the hidden dimension of organizational cost: it
takes signifigant time and energy to pull off live events like
this. I also wonder about the spirit of the event - the more
rules and details we add, the more we risk becoming rigid
and structured, and frankly, less fun. My belief is that education
requires engagement, and engagement comes more easily through things that
are fun.

After each team was announced, and was ready on stage, we read the
problem out loud to them and the audience. Then we started the clock, and
gave the team two warnings, at five minutes and one minute remaining. We
recommended that teams use their last minute to describe to the judges
their final design idea.

The Problem

Before the event all of us organizers met to review the list of
potential problems. We took ideas from all forms of interaction design
(web design, software, architecture, industrial design, etc.). Many
problems came from interview questions that I use when interviewing
designers or UI project managers . The challenge was to find problems that
were broad enough that they did not require much explanation, while
simultaneously being challenging and tractable in only ten minutes.

The new challenge for 2001 was the following twist: An additional
criteria for the problem was revealed to the team when there was 7 minutes
left. We played trumpets to let people know it was the appointed
time. In our continuing effort to pretend we're Monty Python, we played
real trumpets.

Design a remote control for a children's dump truck
toy. The remote must provide for the following features: steering,
acceleration, reverse and forward gears and dump functionality.

The twist: design for a child with a broken right arm.

The action

Teams
this year benefited from reviewing the video tape from last year's
competition. This year, two teams used the audience to help with survey
style questions (Trilogy), as well as impromptu interviews (IBM). Cooper
Design used a more honest approach to
brainstorming, focusing more on their own discussion, rather than worry
about audience perception.

Both IBM and Trilogy divided the whiteboards into sections representing
the different parts of the design process. They worked from
left to right, and in some cases tried to time their movement across
the whiteboard with their remaining time. (In project management,
this is called a schedule driven release)

In the post session Q&A, a point of discussion was how much
influence a team's showmanship played in their scoring. The category for
teamwork could consider presentation skills, but mostly in terms of how it
effected the outcome or process, and not

The results

The final results were tabulated live on stage, while our M.C. Chris
Konrad entertained the audience. Prizes this year included sets of fuzzy
dice, colored glitter balls, and a life size cutout of Bruce Lee.

The final results are listed below:

1. Tivoli / IBM 3. Trilogy 3. Cooper Design

The Controversy

No Interactionary would be complete without some audience unrest. This
year, the judges and organizers faced some questions about the overall
merit of the format, and the final scoring. The point of contention was
the validity of a format that emphasized process and teamwork on an
equivalent level to the final design, given that outside of conferences,
the ends matter more than the means.

I responded to the questions stating that the primary purpose of the
format was to mix education, design and sport, and in order to prevent
teams from working in ways that only they could understand, we balanced
the scoring to force more of the process and teamwork to come through to
the audience. The ten minute time limit acted as a forcing function
as well, keeping things interesting, but giving just enough time to see
how different groups of designers approached the same problem. More time
would have been less interesting to observe, and less time would have been
impossible for teams to accomplish anything.

Designing a good panel session or event is just like web design:
everything is a tradeoff of one attribute for another. So while many
modifications could be attempted, they all represent tradeoffs across the
attributes of education, audience engagement, and design
reality.

This event required great courage from all of these
folks. They all approached this with a professionalism and
sense of humor that made it really fun to put together. My thanks go to
them. All the organizers would also like to thank Eric Bergman and Marilyn
Salzman from CHI for helping us to make this happen.